WASHINGTON — With gun legislation taking shape on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama has kept a low profile on an issue he has made a critical part of his second-term agenda.

The president has not been highly visible in the debate during the past three weeks as gun bills are being written. He has been embroiled in a budget battle that has dominated his time and for now is letting Vice President Joe Biden bang the drum for tighter firearms laws.

White House officials say the president plans to speak out on gun control as the issue moves toward a Senate vote in the coming weeks. But for now, he's staying out of delicate negotiations among lawmakers. The White House says he will become more vocal if the legislative process hits a roadblock.

Obama called for a gun control vote in his State of the Union address on Feb. 12 and followed up three days later with a speech on shooting violence in his murder-plagued hometown of Chicago. He has barely mentioned gun control publicly in the time since, other than during a minute of remarks Thursday, shortly after a Senate committee approved a bill to increase gun-trafficking penalties. He thanked the senators who supported it and urged other lawmakers to pass it into law.

"I urge Congress to move on other areas that have support of the American people — from requiring universal background checks to getting assault weapons off our streets — because we need to stop the flow of illegal guns to criminals," Obama said before signing a revitalized Violence Against Women Act.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to resume voting on gun bills Tuesday, including an assault weapons ban and background checks.

Biden, a decades-long veteran of negotiations over gun laws, has been more vocal in the White House's gun-control campaign with speeches, interviews and private negotiations.

Matt Bennett, a spokesman for gun-control proponent Third Way, said it's good for Obama himself not to get too involved because he is seen as such a lightning rod on the issue and might stir up more opposition from Republicans. "We don't want Republican attitudes about him to get in the way of a deal," Bennett said.

Despite the high public support, all the measures face a tough fight that will require a well-coordinated campaign to pass in a Congress that has a tradition of defending gun-ownership rights.

That campaign is being run out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, where the vice president's staff meets each week with representatives of gun-control groups around a leather-covered conference table.

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